Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Food rise has Bolivia’s coca farmers planting rice instead of cocaine
The promise and perils of agricultural trade liberalization: Lessons from the Americas
Africa’s last and least – cultural expectations ensure women are hit hardest by burgeoning food crisis
Dumpster diving with the freegans: Why pay for food?
City to get 50 MW power from garbage
Rubbish idea that could make driving cheaper
Is growth over? – California’s continuing water crisis may mean the end of the state as we have known it
Mideast facing choice between crops and water
Spain’s water fair tackles conservation with innovation
“The best security you have is a prepared neighbor,” said Paloma O’Riley a decade ago, when she was rallying people to prepare for an emergency of unknown proportions.
The comment still rings true, as we prepare for a hard winter in the short term and, in the medium term, what James Howard Kunstler calls the “long emergency” of declining fossil fuels and other challenges that lie ahead. Fortunately, people at all levels in Vermont are scrambling to prepare for this winter, and many of them are conscious that high food and fuel prices are more a harbinger of things to come than a one-time increase.
Either we must adopt a new attitude toward waste, or, as ecologists and city planners are warning, we will bury ourselves in it. Wastes must be seen as a natural part of the life cycle and food chain; decay is a necessary prelude to life. And if man has, in his infinite wisdom, invented brilliant materials like plastic that will not decay in a suitable length of time, then he must reuse them or go buy an empty planet someplace for a dumping ground.
In the rush to develop renewable fuels from plants, converting crop residues into cellulosic ethanol would seem to be a slam dunk. However, the stems and leaves left over after crops are harvested may have more value if they’re left on the ground, according to a USDA-Washington State University soil scientist.
The people who most need a food reserve are the people who struggle the most to get it. As food and energy costs inflate, and the safety net for the poor begins to break apart, the lower your income, the more urgent it is for you to take advantage of economies of scale, to buy food at lower prices, the more necessary it is that you have some reserve to tide you over in hard times. But that’s incredibly tough if hard times are already here.
Australia faces food crisis as rivers reach new low
A gas supply disruption case study – the Varanus Island explosion
Australia considers first new coal port in 25 years
True to form, Bush administration still refuses to regulate greenhouse gases
White House buries climate change deaths report
Diary: Colorado River drought
The bicycling horticulturalist
Gardens Save the Day in ‘WALL-E’ and America’s Cities
The happy minimalist
Alex Steffen: The outquisition
Wendell Berry on Small Farms, Local Wisdom and the Folly of Greed Digging In (excerpts)
The last great push for Victory Gardens came from the federal government during World War II. Today, Hayden-Smith said, there isn’t as strong a connection between American military involvement and the home front, but the American way of life is imperiled by more than foreign wars. The country is facing ever rising fuel and food prices, the threat of global warming, and a high rate of obesity.
